If it's a private school run by people dumb enough to believe that stuff I can believe they couldn't think of a better title for the test. Fake most likely, but maybe some homeschool thing also.

Anyway, if it's a fake I applaud the creator for creativity. If it's real I applaud the creator for their belief in the creator and their ability to harm children and rob them of a chance to live in a house without wheels.

Google the Creationist Museum. Marvel at the....I don't know the word for it.

When I was little I remember my religious nut aunt saying that dinosaur fossils were placed there by God to test our faith, or else by scientists to trick us...something like that. Now they seem to have changed it to say that dinosaurs did exist, but at the same time as humans.

There are Creationists who don't take the word "day" in Genesis 1 literally, even though the author goes out of his way to make it clear that he means a 24-hour day, e.g., "And the evening and the morning were the second day." They say a "day" could be a period of millions of years, which gives time for the rise and fall of dinosaurs before the creation of humans.

But there are so-called Young-Earth Creationists who do take Genesis 1 (and subsequent chapters) literally, so they believe that the earth and all life was created in the same six-day period. And since Genesis gives the ages of the patriarchs at the time the next link in the lineage was born, they can add them up from Adam down to a time we can date (approximately) by extra-Biblical methods, and they come up with an age for the earth of 6 to 10 thousand years.

Personally, I think the second group has more integrity. The first group IMO is trying not to look ignorant of science, but they succeed only in compromising their faith.

There are Creationists who don't take the word "day" in Genesis 1 literally, even though the author goes out of his way to make it clear that he means a 24-hour day, e.g., "And the evening and the morning were the second day." They say a "day" could be a period of millions of years, which gives time for the rise and fall of dinosaurs before the creation of humans.

Note: everything I say here is based on an English translation

I'm not at all sure how you can take the word "day" in Genesis to mean a literal 24 hour period. Each day is described as an "evening" and a "morning", but since the sun wasn't created until the fourth day, these "days" don't seem to be what we think of as days.

This doesn't help with the dinosaur issue, of course, because land creatures weren't produced until the sixth day -- after the sun.

Pterosaurs and plesiosaurs were created on the fifth day I presume along with the other winged and sea creatures

I teach 4th grade science. The only chance that could be a real test is if it was for a very small fundamentalist christian school. Though it's a sad fact there are certainly adults in this country who would give the same answers on that quiz, there's no way it could come from a public school.

I'm not at all sure how you can take the word "day" in Genesis to mean a literal 24 hour period. Each day is described as an "evening" and a "morning", but since the sun wasn't created until the fourth day, these "days" don't seem to be what we think of as days.

That's a nit, compared to having fruit trees growing before the sun was created. The answer, in both cases, is, "It's a miracle!"

The image was publicized in a post to Reddit's r/atheism forum, made by a user who maintained that it was a real quiz given at a private religious school in South Carolina, and that he was shown the quiz by the student's parent and took a picture of it with his iPhone. He declined to identify the school for now, stating that "I am not publicizing it since it is a small school and I don't want any publicity that might reflect badly on the kid" and "I don't want the kid to get in trouble, so I am keeping that under my hat until June when school is over," although he did allow that the school was "North of Greer, SC." A few days after the Reddit posting, a reader wrote to us and reported that the quiz displayed above belonged to his 10-year-old daughter...

Snopes has also posted a photo of what's purported to be a second page from this quiz, provided by the person claiming to be the student's father. Not definitive proof, but both of Snopes's sources (the father and the father's friend) indicate they would reveal the name of the school in June, once the school year's over.

One of my nephews is home-schooled, and for a while was part of a more... Religious... Home-schooling circle (when my sister-in-law found out what they were teaching, he got yanked real fast). My sis-in-law gave me the science textbook they used, and I keep it around for a laugh. Some gems from it:

1) All the planets have a 'reason' for being there, and even if we don't know what those reasons are, G-d does, and that's all we need to find out.

2) Dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, as evidenced by the fact that so many cultures have dragon myths (I wish I was making that up).

And my absolute favorite:

3) If enough people believe in something, that means it's probably true.

My brother made sure my sis-in-law gave me the book, just for grins, but he -refuses- to let me even bring it back into their house.

__________________
"Try this: Before you post, say what you wrote down out loud. If you find yourself shaking your head and exclaiming something along the lines of, "What the hell does that mean?", delete."
-Czarcasm

I'm a little suspicious of the fact that the witnesses here were posting this on an atheism forum, indicating that they have strong atheist views. But they supposedly sent their children to a religious school and were surprised to discover that school had a religious agenda. And when they did discover it, their response was to ridicule the school online rather than talk to the school administration or remove their child from the school. And when the first witness is questioned, a second witness pops up to corroborate the story. But both witnesses claim that while they have evidence to support their story they can't show it right now.

I have to say this looks a lot more like a propaganda campaign than a real life situation.

It's possible the teacher is teaching multiple science grades and labeled the test for organizational reasons. I don't know that I'd buy that explanation, though.

Perhaps the school doesn't create its own educational materials, but buys them from some "Christian science" organization, and the test is labelled like that so the school knows which part of their curriculum it's supposed to go with?

And you know the answer is going to be: God was there and he caused it all to be written down in the Bible so that we can know the Truth.

When you start with the premise that the Bible is the literal written word of God, that kind of argument doesn't work. The person you are arguing with believes he has the credible Word of the one who was there for all of this. He is not basing his belief on personal reasoning, he has the revealed Truth.

I don't think it's a good argument to say that the title of the quiz looks fishy because it just says "4th grade science quiz". This was on the first page of a google search for that phrase and it looks real to me, and appears to be on a school's website. http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/canbylan...4457ED35E9.pdf

I thought that too, but it's not like it's an extraordinary claim that the test is genuine. It's not disputed that creationism is being taught in private schools, and hence quizzes like this are going to exist.

I'm a little suspicious of the fact that the witnesses here were posting this on an atheism forum, indicating that they have strong atheist views. But they supposedly sent their children to a religious school and were surprised to discover that school had a religious agenda. And when they did discover it, their response was to ridicule the school online rather than talk to the school administration or remove their child from the school. And when the first witness is questioned, a second witness pops up to corroborate the story. But both witnesses claim that while they have evidence to support their story they can't show it right now.

I have to say this looks a lot more like a propaganda campaign than a real life situation.

The way I understood it, the person posting in the atheist section of Reddit was just a friend of the child's family. After it went viral, the father then sent in a collaborative affirmation. I don't think that's proof positive that this isn't a fake, but I also don't take that to me he's an atheist either. What's less clear is why the father would wait until June to share the details. You'd think he was on board with religious schooling and therefore would be proud of their stance on issues like this. Waiting seems to imply disagreement or at least shame in not wanting them outed for their beliefs.

What's less clear is why the father would wait until June to share the details. You'd think he was on board with religious schooling and therefore would be proud of their stance on issues like this. Waiting seems to imply disagreement or at least shame in not wanting them outed for their beliefs.

Read the explanation on the Snopes page it sounds like he didn't know that the school was teaching creationism, and thought it was a good school otherwise, and is planning on removing his daughter from it at after the end of the year. Presumably he is waiting because he doesn't want his daughter punished for any bad publicity the school gets.

Off topic. But when I was in the fourth grade (called "class" when I am) I once showed my father my geography school book........and he blew his top. Many years later I found out the reason was that the book showed the map of the USSR. It was published in 1993.

Off topic. But when I was in the fourth grade (called "class" when I am) I once showed my father my geography school book........and he blew his top. Many years later I found out the reason was that the book showed the map of the USSR. It was published in 1993.

Parents......see what your kids are being taught.

My 9th grade history teacher told us a map of the Caspian Sea was actually Great Britain. (She was mistaking the water for land.) It took us some time to convince her she was wrong.

The parents sent her to a religious school; I suspect they already expected religious propaganda.

Not necessarily. Many people send their kids to a religious school because its better than a public school and cheaper than a secular private school. They might have misjudged the amount that religion would influence the curriculum. Obviously they should have checked before hand, but I wouldn't conclude that everyone who sends their kid to a religious school does so so their kid can learn fundimentalism.

I really don't get all the "wha-a-a-at? Religion is being taught to children as fact?!?" outrage I've seen in comments on other sites. What the heck else did they think would be taught at a religious school?